The FEC dismissed a complaint by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) against Palin and the RNC, ruling that the approximately $150,000 spent on clothing for the governor and her family was permitted as coordinated party expenditures.

A Palin spokeswoman said the governor and her supporters are “pleased” to learn that the purchases were in compliance with the law.

“The clothes in this campaign were treated just like the many stages upon which the governor stood and the hundreds of lights used to illuminate them; all were used during the campaign and returned upon its conclusion,” Palin spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said in a statement.

Stapleton also railed against the media’s “obsessive” fixation on Palin’s clothes.

“It is difficult to reconcile the obsessive reference to clothing on the campaign trail with any legitimate political issue and that leaves the unsettling conclusion that Governor Palin is the single national political figure who is critiqued on policy, family and clothing,” she said. “When people start asking details about the personal effects of other candidates, then maybe the double standard will be eliminated.”

The FEC’s ruling shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone with more than two working brain cells and modicum of commonsense… The RNC’s clothing purchases may have been ill-advised and badly handled but they weren’t illegal.